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editor's note

Tanya Chaitanya (Editor Femina India)

For every doubting Thomas who tells you women can’t scale mountains, wrestle in the ring, endure physical hardship, your comeback should be a simple hashtag:#StandStrong.
There’s no bigger retaliation than success, they say. So show your calibre to these detractors or anybody who believes that we, as women, lack the potential to be physically as fit as men by being just that. Not to say that it will be an easy process.
The conditioning that we are not at par physically starts early. From the time we are offered a hand to bring down the cookie jar to when we are told not to lift too heavy a weight; when the sports selectors in schools bypass promising girl children or when the male friends refuse to count us in in any serious hiking plans—that feeling of being physically less is ingrained right from the beginning.
So how is it that we witness sportswomen like Mary Kom packing a punch in the arena or a badminton champ like PV Sindhu physically pushing herself to the limits? Or the fact that celebs like Jacqueline Fernandez, Taapsee Pannu, Katrina Kaif swear by their fitness routine and are known to train for longer hours than their male counterparts?
Then again look beyond these superwomen. Look around you. There are regular women storming into male bastions, physically-challenging professions and pursuits, and coming out triumphant. This new-found confidence comes with taking care of yourself, being cognizant of the fact that our body needs to be given TLC, from the right diet and nutrition to exercise and care to help us stand strong.
This is when I raise a toast: Here’s to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, may we raise them!

Travel with food: Portuguese egg custard tarts

Flaky pastry, made with a mix of egg yolks, milk and sugar, is a favourite in countries around the world. The French have their version, Britain has the custard tart, but off late, Portugal’s variant has gotten a whole lot of love.

Pastel de nata (the plural is pasteis), or egg custard tarts, are little bundles of happiness. It has a sweet, rich filling, flavoured with vanilla, lemon or cinnamon. After it’s baked, it gets a semi-browned glaze over it.

The original recipe for these tarts seems to have been found at the Jeronimos Monastery in Belem, near Lisbon. Egg whites were needed by the monks and nuns to starch their clothes, which meant the yolks were often leftover – and this egg custard tart was a great way to ensure they don’t go to waste. When monasteries across Portugal were closed during the liberal movement of the 1820s and ’30s, the monks sold the recipe to a nearby sugar refinery. Since 1837, the Antiga Confeitaria de Belem has been the only place where you can buy genuine pasteis de Belem – it makes up to 20,000 tarts a day.

Today, you can find these tarts around the world, particularly in the colonial outposts of Macau and Hong Kong, where a Macanese-Portuguese version of the tart is much-loved. But, you don’t have to travel to taste it. Here’s the scoop on how to make it at home.

1. Make the custard filling by combining the sugar, egg yolks and cream, and heating the mixture in a bain-marie. Keep stirring as the water boils until the mix thickens to a custard consistency. Allow the custard to cool down while you prepare the pastry.

2. Cut the dough into 12 equal pieces about 1.5cm thick.

3. Take a greased muffin tray and massage the dough evenly into each hollow to shape the pieces into cups.

4. Pour the cooled custard (mixed with a few drops of vanilla essence if using) into each cup.

5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 290°C (or as high as it will go below that) for about 15 minutes until the pastry is golden and the custard turns dark brown in patches.